While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php) BEFORE playing!


Whichever game has the earliest finish date will be declared the victor. The winner (and settings for the next Gauntlet) will be announced with the next Hall of Fame update.

While each map can only be played once, players are more than welcome to generate new maps and submit multiple games. Also, as everyone is playing their own distinct maps, there is no need for spoiler limitation within the forum. In fact, we encourage detailed posting of strategy and gameplay, although all conversation about this Guantlet should stay within this thread.

Any games not finished before the submission cutoff may still be submitted to the Hall of Fame as general entries.

New players:
Please note that we need two files for Hall of Fame submissions. A save from your initial 4000bc turn, and the turn after you win. For the last file, when you win the game, you'll be displayed your sequence of victory screens and then be prompted if you wish to exit or play "just a few more turns". Select just a few more turns, and then save the game immediately without playing further.

The settings for this Gauntlet are a slight departure from usual. Please review them carefully:

Difficulty: Warlord
Mapsize: Tiny
Victory: Space Race (though ALL victory conditions must be enabled!)
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Submitted on or before: March 9th.
Opponents: Kublai Khan and Genghis Khan must be two of your opponents. If you choose to have more, they are optional.
Setting: OCC must be checked.

I'm definitely participating in this one. Wasn't expecting the difficulty level to drop so low, and an OCC! :woohoo:

Now this... this looks interesting.

- Bill

Opponents: Kublai Khan and Genghis Khan must be two of your three opponents.

So, for this gauntlet we have to have at least three opponents?

So, for this gauntlet we have to have at least three opponents?
No, two will do. I made a last minute decision to switch from Small to Tiny.

Thanks for pointing that out.

This gauntlet looks like fun. Will be my first OCC attempt.

Never tried an OCC. Any tips?

Never tried an OCC. Any tips?

That's sad to hear - my first OCC game was the most enlightening game so far ;) Play it, see how to make a city build modern armor in 1 turn.

Tips? I'm usually playing on noble, but:

- Note that you can build any national wonder with only one of the prerequisite buildings (need only one theatre of globe theatre), except cathedrals.
- Globe theatre. Never mind happiness resources, trade or gift them away. The limiting factor is health.
- Prepare for an attack. You have low population and look weak to the AI.
- You will be attacked.
- Perimeter defense. Defend your borders, do not hide behind the city walls. Don't let them come to pillage your improvements.
- You probably want to have iron at the starting location. Can't build a lot of things without it.
- Some civics boost your empires production by 50%, or your empires GP rate by 100%, don't let them pass ;)
- Did I mention to prepare for an attack?

Gotta play now :) Will be interesting to see how you elite players beat me by hundreds of turns ... :sad:

Regards.

I finished one in 1966. I only had the 2 Khans but I think we'll need some more people. The tech place was pretty slow. I was Peter (Phi/Exp). I smashed the tech pace - I was always many many techs ahead, but I had to pretty much self-research everything.

One thing I tried this time (it's my 2nd game) was to take all the religions. Even without a spiritual civ, I took all but Buddhism. I used this mostly for the Monasteries. I also got pretty much all the wonders.

I'm sure this time can be beat, but I think we'll need another power or three.

Had no problems with wars. Gave into all demands and ran free religion

Deleted because I found the answers to my question at this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144787). It's worth a look if this is your first OCC.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=146231&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

is another good thread on Apolyton, though I'm finding a lot of the advice there not applicable to "only" playing on Warlord

OK just tried this ... and lost in 2050 to Ghengis, time victory, 33 turns missing for building space ship parts.

I played as good as I could and was relatively lucky with resources, I had iron, coal and oil. I had no hills though, and only the iron in the city radius, my production came from this and 4 forests. One very stupid mistake I made was I did not build the coal power plant for tens of turns. :blush: I'm still such a newb. :lol:

One very helpful thing was that I was on friendly terms with the Khans. I had them attacking civs who would attack me (Isabella, Catherine), thus making the war efforts very easy. Wars did not hamper the effort at all. I also believe in having many, many competitors. Border tensions will spark wars among them.

I missed aluminum. I think I can't pull this off without any of iron, coal and aluminum at all.

I'm very much looking forward to your games!

Regards, and good night.

Just played a game and won in 1898. Some final stats - Mecca was size 22, 206 hpt - 59 base, 792 bpt. I got 15 great people from GPP, plus all 4 free ones. I had the 2 Khans, Catherine, Mansa, and Victoria.

My game was really smoking for the first part. I had stone, so that helped with the Pyramids (which I think are key due to Representation) and then used the Oracle to take Civil Service. I ran the table on all 7 religions, though I'm not sure how helpful that was. I did build a few monasteries, but I was doing so well tech-wise that Scientific Method came by before too long.

Genghis declared on me once, but never made a landing. It woudln't have mattered since it would have been longbows vs. rifles. My galleon sunk his galley, tore up his fishing nets and then he paid me 50 gold for peace

Early game: Hunting from a hut, then the first 3 religions. After Masonry I started on the Pyramids, which completed in 1720 BC - swap to representation.
1040 - Code of Laws and the Oracle, which as I mentioned I used to take Civil Service, swap to Bureaucracy.
750 - Literature, rushed the Great Library (the only of my great people that wasn't joined as a super specialist)
225 - Hanging Gardens
75 - paper, 250 Education - then up through Optics to discover Liberalism and take Astronomy in 540 AD
1120 - Sci. Method
1390 - Computers
1550 - Rocketry, 1645 - Apollo

Then it was just a matter of building the parts. I couldn't tech fast enough. For most of the parts, I would discover the technology, build the part in 4 or 5 turns but have to wait 2-3 more before the next tech was discovered.

I also built the Globe Theater sometime in there, and obviously Oxford and the Ironworks and the National Epic. Had some health problems for most of the late game - traded all my happy resources for health.

One other problem was the lack of aluminum but as I mentioned production really wasn't the problem. I'm not sure how to speed the tech pace up. Even with 3 financial leaders I researched just about everything myself. I know in the OCC thread they talk about gifting techs to people in the hopes that they can research *something* but I'm not sure it's even worth it to build the Internet. I've been doing one island per person and no tiny islands, with the hopes of keeping people separated so as to not brew wars, and that has been working, but I wonder if a better plan would be early meeting for a faster tech pace. I'm not that familiar with Warlord so I don't know if this is common at this level

No war problems for me in this game either except for the one fake war with Khan.

This gauntlet will be fun. I don't like normal speed at all though. I am predicting a finish date around 1600. I can give a more accurate one after my first attempt.

I am pretty mad right now. I played a quick game with just the Khans and Ghengis declared war on me even though we were on good terms. I didn't have a defense so I lost, not a big deal, played another game. This time I decided to take out Ghengis in the beginning. I took him out pretty early, was doing really well. Would have finished around 1900 AD or a little before. In 1882 Kublai got a domination victory. LOL And I was the one that took out his competition :p

I am pretty mad right now. I played a quick game with just the Khans and Ghengis declared war on me even though we were on good terms. I didn't have a defense so I lost, not a big deal, played another game. This time I decided to take out Ghengis in the beginning. I took him out pretty early, was doing really well. Would have finished around 1900 AD or a little before. In 1882 Kublai got a domination victory. LOL And I was the one that took out his competition :p
I think you were supposed to say: Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannn!!!! :lol:

I had a few too many cottages there at the end. I actually was able to learn techs faster than I could build parts! :eek: Amazingly I didn't have a single war the entire game. In fact no one did.

Finished with a launch in 1876 AD. Ended up getting nineteen great people (three artist, four engineers, one merchant, one prophet, and ten scientists).

I’ve added an attachment of Berlin at the end of the game.

Edit: I guess I should mention the last 15-20 turns I converted a bunch of towns into watermills for the extra hammers.

the time limit hit before i could complete the spaceship engine :(
this was my first occ game and i made the really bad mistake of building the united nations:blush:
right after the first election window came up i realised i had to declare war on both of the khans asap or one of them would win a diplomatic victory: by the time of the first attempt by genghis i had managed to reduce his votes to 1 below the amount required for diplomatic victory

so... as my first gauntlet game it was a disaster but overall my first completed civ4 game :D

@Methos - nice work. My 1898 game was invalid becuase I didn't have No Cheating checked grrr.

I think there will be a balance between tech and production (duh) - I wonder though I think the best solution would be to get other civs to tech for you while you have a high production city. Not sure the best way to accomplish that though...

That game is the first time I can remember of being able to out research a space launch in an OCC game. Typically it's been the other way around for me. I think I went a little overboard in my cottage spam.

Trying to keep commerce even with production will be the tough part of this game. Need to figure out how to even them out during the endgame while still maintaining a fast pace.

Looking forward to trying this again. Still not for sure who the best leader is, or landmass. That last game was on a Balanced map.

Warlord huh? It's kinda like playing all by yourself. I doubt you will have to worry about any attacks. If you play islands, you can build zero military and just keep the free warrior you start with. No one will find you before you launch.

Islands is great way to win on Diety level, but I don't think it's right for this gauntlet. You won't get to trade with anyone for a long time, if ever. You'll probably have to do 99% of the tech yourself. Constructing parts should be quick and easy, so the fastest person up the tech tree will win...let's say around 1750 AD. 1600 seems unattainable, but let's find out....

Hah! I managed to pull this off - without any of the "neccessary" resources! I managed to trade for iron and coal later on, though.

2044 - and I'm rather proud of myself :)

OK I'm gonna sit back and watch, now. This is much more interesting than the previous gauntlet.

Regards.

Well, my first game was a crappy 1958 finish. I tried Bismark on Team Battlegrounds Top vs Bottom. Two Khans and a Lizzy. I was attacked three times but easily beat them back with superior military tech.

I had stone close. Late game I started two land wars to destroy some border towns that were keeping me from first marble and then aluminum. That worked pretty slick because I had great artists on the back burner and culture bombed myself to legendary culture at just the right moment to expand into both resources by but a single square. That was the coolest part of my strat, unfortunately.

Had some help trading until around astronomy, and then I was on my own. I tried gifting techs to let them help more in trades, but they couldn't seem to research squat.

I experimented with an all farm/no cottage strat for maximum great people -- won't do that again. A better strat would have been to wait for a start with some floodplains and go ahead and use cottages.

Lessons learned: team battleground is the smallest map, so it squezzes the most resources into the smallest space. However, it's so small that you may have to go to war to enjoy the benefits of your full border potential. What kinds of maps are others using? Pang? Balanced? Great Plains might be a nice choice, for all the food.

Also, I was ticked off to discover that my city was not within the 30 degree latitude limit for the Space Elevator. That, after I had saved up two great engineers. This is an easy-to-make mistake, since in a non-OCC game, if your capital is too high in latitude, you can just build it in another city. Not so in the OCC.

So be warned OCC Civvers, if you want to build the Space Elevator, move that settler toward the equator. The Elevator isn't essential to all strats, but my all-food improvement strat precluded mines, so production was a bit of an issue.

Played my first game of HOF and ended around 1950. Played all farm, no town with 4 hills in my begin cross, and that worked just fine. (acadamy + 2 scientists + representation makes up for a whole lot of cottaging) Had a bit of bad luck with my Great People tho, since I managed to get around 50% artists, eventhough the chances for anything else were far higher and artists are the ones who don't produce hammers at all :(

Then again it's fun to see AI cities explode as your cultural bounderies grow.

I started off real good, building 5 wonders in a row (partheon, oracle, great librabry, pyramids, hanging gardens) with the little help of my chopper friend. (lots of forests really do help ;) ) but somewhere in the middle I started slacking and marveling at my city with all the great wonders I build I really didnt need and not beelining straight for space ship parts. Was good fun playing though, and I'm ashamed to admit I forgot to make an opening save, so I can't submit it. Got about a zilion screenshots as I was planning on making a large posts about my first game. But since I was rather disappointed by the late arrival of my spaceship (I think I could easily do <1900) I'm going to try again and if it's an interesting game I'll post it here.

@n0xie: Try to stay away from any wonders that provide artist GP points. I only build wonders with that type of GP point if they are really beneficial to my city.

@regorarr: First off, I mean no offense, just curious and wanting to offer suggestions and learn from your experience. Anyway…

I’m surprised you didn’t mine all the hills tiles, even those outside your city radius. It doesn’t happen often, but occaisionally I do have resources pop up on those tiles. If they are not mined it won’t happen.
Why did you go with Free Religion rather than Pacificism? The +100% would have put you at +120 GPP rather than at +90. IME and opinion the gains from super specialist make up for the +10%.
One thing I’ve learned is island, archipelago, small continents, etc. maps seem to be bad for an OCC game. At least IME. I suggest going with balanced, Pangaea, or something with more land. It seems IMO that having all the extra water tiles is of less value than having a lot of land tiles that could possibly have resources.

Again, I apologize if any offense is taken; I’m just trying to help both you and me. Finding out why you did what you did helps me learn. Figured to help more if I’d attach my save file as well. I apologize if I insulted you. My opinions are just that, the only foundation they have is my limited experience.

@n0xie:

You don't need to make an opening save. The computer does it for you. Just look in the Saves>Auto folder.

@n0xie:

You don't need to make an opening save. The computer does it for you. Just look in the Saves>Auto folder.
Except if you use Regenerate, then you *do* need to make an opening save as the autosave doesn't get saved when you regenerate.

@regorarr: First off, I mean no offense, just curious and wanting to offer suggestions and learn from your experience. Anyway…

I’m surprised you didn’t mine all the hills tiles, even those outside your city radius. It doesn’t happen often, but occaisionally I do have resources pop up on those tiles. If they are not mined it won’t happen.
Why did you go with Free Religion rather than Pacificism? The +100% would have put you at +120 GPP rather than at +90. IME and opinion the gains from super specialist make up for the +10%.
One thing I’ve learned is island, archipelago, small continents, etc. maps seem to be bad for an OCC game. At least IME. I suggest going with balanced, Pangaea, or something with more land. It seems IMO that having all the extra water tiles is of less value than having a lot of land tiles that could possibly have resources.



No offense taken. The answers to most of those questions can be summed up in the phrase "I'm an idiot" ? :)

1. You're right - I should have done that. I did do that in some of my other games. I get bored and occasionally automate my worker. Which is another point - 1 worker or 2 (or more?)

2. My reasoning for Free Religion was to not be in a religion to avoid wars. After my military dominance was assured I probably should have swapped to Pacifism, especially since I was spiritual

3. Yeah - for some reason I was reading that you had to choose an islands map for this gauntlet. I think I must have confused myself from the Apolyton OCC thread where islands is the way to go (to avoid wars), but that's on much higher levels. I think I'll go for panagea next.

My 2 cents on your questions...

1. I don't think you need mines already built. The resources will pop up and then you can go mine them...true?

2. I use Free Religion to avoid wars too...and the 10% science.

3. Islands really slow down the AI on Diety. Don't use them for this gauntlet.

1866 AD for my first attempt on Balanced using Liz (as always).

Sub-1800 could happen. That'd be 34 turns faster. I had no stone or marble, so I chopped almost all my forests for the Pyramids. I kept 4 forests in my "fat cross" for health and lumbermills. Since I was out of forests I wanted to chop, I decided to research CS and paper myself and use the oracle for the Education slingshot.

With 1 rice and and 2 flood plains, my city reached size 18. I should have pushed the beakers a little harder. I got to about 800 per turn before dialing it back and focusing on hammers.

I had no iron and could not trade for it.:(

I built one Musketman and one Redcoat, but never got attacked...as expected.

I played with the Khan's, Mansa and Cyrus. Mansa was nice (as usual) with the tech trading, but the Khan's don't like him, so that made diplomacy tougher. Maybe it was a good thing. The Khan's both attacked him instead of me.

Hey Methos, Nice BIG city. You must have gotten close to 1000 beakers before you changed the towns to watermills (good strategy). Any idea what your max was?

Your screenshot shows you were not running Universal Sufferage. Once your tech is no longer the problem and you need to build parts, switch for the +hammer in towns. You can even buy a power plant or something too.

1884 launch with Saladin.
First time i got it off without getting atacked. I added mansa to the mix and i also gifted all my techs. They didnt attack me. I'll have to try it again to see if theres any consistency to that.

I dont see how any military solution can save time. even if it means building a single unit. theres always something better to do.

I used all farms and mines. not a single cottage. I got my beakers up to about 850. I tend to switch back and forth between production and adding scientists during the game. is this a mistake? is it better to just tech as fast as you can and then switch?

Ususally ill get as many religeons a s i can for the monastaries. This game, which was by far my best i didnt "go for any". i didnt build any monastaries either.

So basically, im using Saladin for no anarchy. Is this a good anough trait for this gauntlet?

As for the civs i use rep,bur,caste,merc or enviro,pac

Can someone briefly explain how cottages produce more beakers than a scientist under rep?

i would greatly appreciate any thoughts on my general strat. im thinking about goin with liz and trying finance. i dunno phi goes well with farms.

Any idea what your max was?

Your screenshot shows you were not running Universal Sufferage. Once your tech is no longer the problem and you need to build parts, switch for the +hammer in towns. You can even buy a power plant or something too.

Not for sure what my max was, but I don’t believe it was over 1000.

You’re right about US. I realized my mistake after I had swapped to Environmentalism. I should have swapped to US at the same time. I didn’t feel going through another turn of anarchy would benefit be enough, so instead I started switching tiles.

As for the civs i use rep,bur,caste,merc or enviro,pac

Mercantilsm? Do you mean Free Market?

I don't think you need mines already built. The resources will pop up and then you can go mine them...true?

When you mine a hill, even those outside your city radius, there is a small percentage chance that either gold, silver, a few others, appear. The only way they have a random chance of appearing is if that hill tile has been mined.

:mad: Aluminum :mad:

I had a great game going, but no aluminum showed up. I thought Balanced guaranteed it would be within 4 tiles. Not so. If I had it, I think I'da been 1700's. As it is I launched in...

1820AD

This time I used Qin. Only the first few GP seem to matter in my strategy, so I tried playing with no Phi trait (I usually play Liz). I figured I would build/chop the Great Lib instead of using an engineer on it like I usually do.

I had only. -->1 Gems<-- and 1 Corn. I had 1 Dye, but I put a cottage on that. Stone was not too far away. No flood plains. No hills! I also never traded for any health resources! I wanted to of course, but no one had any. I played all game with just my Corn. I had so many happy resources that I didn't even build the Theatre. Size 16 -17 city.

I was teching like mad with cottages. I got Apollo around 1300 AD.

Again, no attacks. I built one Cho-Ko-Nu and then a couple riflemen when there was nothing else to build.

Only warlord? Oh well, the settings look fun. Off to give it a shot.


For those new to OCC, I strongly recomend this thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=146231&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

and this one: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=144365

Much better, IMO, than anything here on Civ Fanatics.

:mad: Aluminum :mad:

I had a great game going, but no aluminum showed up. I thought Balanced guaranteed it would be within 4 tiles. Not so.

I don't understand this either. If you take a look at Sirian's article (http://civilization4.net/3/175/), specifically his sample balanced map (http://civilization4.net/files/articles/sirian_maps/sample_balanced.gif), the resources don't look to be within four tiles. It does appear that there is no more than four tiles between your starting location and the resource. At least that's what I'm guessing.

I'm still not sure if a balanced map is the best route, but so far that's all I've tried. I'm only on my second game though...

I used all farms and mines. not a single cottage. I got my beakers up to about 850. I tend to switch back and forth between production and adding scientists during the game.

Can someone briefly explain how cottages produce more beakers than a scientist under rep?


Hey jOe,

I'm impressed with this farm/mine strategy. 850 beakers is huge. I didn't not break 750 in my last game. Tell me more. How big is your city? I can't see where 850 comes from with no cottages.

Here's how a cottage is better than a scientist:

Scientist : 6
with let's say 200% = 18

Town + PrintingPress + Financial : 6
Bureaucracy : +3 = 9
with let's say 200% = 27

And that's a town that's not on a river.
Then don't forget the +hammer for Universal Sufferage.

Hey jOe,

I'm impressed with this farm/mine strategy. 850 beakers is huge. I didn't not break 750 in my last game. Tell me more. How big is your city? I can't see where 850 comes from with no cottages.

Here's how a cottage is better than a scientist:

Scientist : 6
with let's say 200% = 18

Town + PrintingPress + Financial : 6
Bureaucracy : +3 = 9
with let's say 200% = 27

And that's a town that's not on a river.
Then don't forget the +hammer for Universal Sufferage.

Scientist is 9 beakers with Representation. And I think it's likely to be more than 200% (Library / Uni / Observ / Academy / Oxford), but that's equivalent in the 2 cases, assuming 100% science, which I've run the whole of all of my games.

Plus a scientist generates more great people, which can be added as super-specialists for another 9 bpt. Not sure which way is best, but I think I'm leaning towards farming

#$(&#@)(&%#

Just played another game and it my pc crashed near the end. I came here to see if anyone had posted anything interesting and I just realize I forgot to tick 'no cheating'. Great. Oh well, no coal and aliminium, but still going strong on that game. It's about 1800ish and I'm halfway through the spaceship. Not bad without railroads :P

I have to say that score will greatly depend on available resources. If you have no stone/marble/coal/aliminium, it will set you back at least a couple of turns. I expect someone with a lucky start break the 1800 barrier. My game is close, and probably would have made it if I could have build some railroads on the forests.

I started near floodplains with some hills and some forests, so I went for cottages this time. I don't know why, but the farm strategy seems better somehow. I was taking in about 650 beakers near the end, but the other game I was way over 800 (city size 20 compared to city size 30 mind you). As this city was far less productive as my other game (I blame the missing GPP for that), I had to cut back on what to build, which resulted in me building more efficient and this time my GPP were working as they should. I mostly got scientists and the occaisional prophet and engineers ( I used one for the Partheon and have 1 saved for the space elevator).

I really enjoy these OCC games and will try once more and hopefully get coal or aliminium, and either marble or stone. At least I seem to get iron each game, which if you don't intend to build an army, is pretty useless :P

Bah, 1904.
I was Qin and I added 11 AI to the tiny "Great Plains". Allowed some trading early.
I had more production than beakers, so I built some research to get those techs faster. Great starting location, but, alas, no aluminium. If I hit legendary sooner, greek aluminum just outside the border would flip to me. Oh well.

1755 AD. launch. Looks like a 1600 finish is possible.

I started the Apollo project in 900 AD. No aluminum (again) and this time I didn't build the space elevator because I decided not to switch to Univ. suff. which means I couldn't rush buy the elevator. Seems like a waste of time to built it (esp. without aluminum.)

Just me (Qin), Mansa and the Khans.

I took some of the advice and built a couple farms. I generated a ton of Great Scientists. Maybe I'll go back to Liz and really work the GPs harder. It seems a balance between cottages and GP farms is best. That's nice; It should be that way.
I never got to size 20. I think the farming strategy breaks down if you go beyond your health limit. If I'm working a farm, I'm eating two food and one more is wasted on unhealthy. So all I get is +1 food if I have Biology, nothing pre-Bio. And who wants to rush to Biology?

Submitted a 1882 AD launch.
This was actually my first game past about Liberalism.
My start was really strong but I made many many mistakes because I didnt know the endgame well enough.
I think earlier than 1700 AD is possible for sure.
I think if a lot of people try this, we will get a sub 1600 AD.
I'll post some of my ideas when I have the time

1938 with Victoria, an improvement on my last game, but nothing compared to some of these scores. I used team battlegrounds again with two Khans and Mansa. I learned that I need to a) give away all my techs as quickly as possible, and b) wait for a start with more food resources, esp corn/rice/wheat, all of which are doubled by the granary.

I built the Taj near the end because I didn't have anything better to do, and was punished with four artists for it... sigh.

Next time I think I'll try it with Liz. Thought about Qin, but since I already get nearly all the wonders that I want, I don't see much use for his wonder-building bonus.

Would some of you with the nice low end-dates let me know what kind of maps you're using?

Great plains, 11 foes, Elizabeth... 1864 AD
on Noble... doh! I usually play noble and forgot to change the difficulty. Bummer.
Noticed in the Hall of Fame after winning. My last game was noble too. Actually I was wondering why the AI was doing so well, stealing my Oracle in 1000 BC and Pyramids 800 BC. I almost restarted but then I decided to play on. I hoped to use a nearby stone but it remained outside of my borders until 1500s.

Positives:
- very strong starting location: 2 silver, gold, 4 floodplain (one with deer), sheep, iron, wheat, fur and uranium in FAT CROSS
- three aluminium cans in cultural area

I used liberalism to get Assembly Line. The only date I noted was 1390 when I started to build Apollo.

Strategy: running max scientists most of the time while trying to work as much as possible of the gold/silver I had (alas, both was not possible, perhaps I should have irrigated the floodplains...). Three cottages on floodplains, camp on deer floodplain. Decided to keep 4 forests in fat cross for some extra health.

Two military units, upgraded from warriors. One worker.

Used final scientist and fusion engineer to trigger GA.

Civics: Representation, Bureaucracy, Slavery, Free Market, Pacifism

Another thought that I had is if you are far ahead tech-wise, which seems to always be the case, you could delay Liberalism. Research it till there's one turn left, then switch and research other things until you can get something really expensive as the free tech.

Gauntlets are fun!
Tried this one twice, looks like 1890 is my limit though..
I think teching is the key here, cause you need to research everything yourself, the other boneheads you're playing with are of no use ;)

@WastinTime How do you tech so fast? Do you use your GP for techs? Then you must use really clever research tree. Could you give some tips please.

Scientist is 9 beakers with Representation.

Plus a scientist generates more great people, which can be added as super-specialists for another 9 bpt.

A normal scientist specialist only makes 6 bpt with Representation. A merged scientist super specialist makes 9 bpt with Representation.

1755 AD. launch. Looks like a 1600 finish is possible.

:goodjob: Wow! Great job on that game! Makes me curious just how early we can finish this one. I wish I had more time so I could play more than one game every several days.

Would some of you with the nice low end-dates let me know what kind of maps you're using?

I don’t know if you consider my date on the low-end, but I have been playing a balanced map.

Another thought that I had is if you are far ahead tech-wise, which seems to always be the case, you could delay Liberalism.

:mischief: This is exactly what I have been doing. I typically use Liberalism to get Radio. Radio seems a rather expensive tech that is required for several different paths. I could probably hold off and get a later one if I really wanted to.

@Wastingtime: What type of map did you use? Any chance we could see a screenshot of your city?

a scientist under rep gets +3 beakers so its actually 9. I never use universal sufferage. it wouldnt help my strat. the single biggest mistake i made at first was using GP to tech or rush. It doesnt work for me. now i use every single GP as a super spec.

Im not sure exactly how my tech rate was so high except that almost all of ny gp are scientist. I stopped building the parth and stonehedge, i may even stop building oracle just to increase the chance of a great scientist. I dont need really need the great engineers either, but i have to have the pyramids. there is nothing difficult about this strat at all. just build farms and try to work as many scientist as possible. its important however to have a 4 or 5 hills and with all the farms they are really easy to work. All floodplains and watermills might work nice too with replaceable parts.

I use Balanced maps because you're supposed to get Aluminum, but I keep missing out.

Regarding hills (I had none in my 1755 launch):
Grass/Hill + mine + railroad < Plains/Forest + Lumbermill + railroad
because, you also get the health bonus from the forest.

A screenshot of the end is kinda messed up because I change towns to watermills and even put some workshops on top of farms.

Teching: I go straight for alphabet (with bronze along the way). Then trade for as much as you can and go for Civil Service. I'd like to use the Oracle for CS, but it is never ready by then, so I save it for education. After Education, beeline to PrintingPress (if you're playing cottages). I delay Liberalism to use for Computers. Late game there is a big choice. What do you all think about this.
A. Beeline to Computers for the Lab. Boosts beakers and spaceship production.
B. Beeline to Rocketry to start Apollo ASAP.
C. Beeline to Industrialism for the Aluminum and factories.
From there you can go for plastics/robotics and get the space elevator.
D. Beeline Biology (and medicine?) for the farming strategy?

After you do one of these, where to next?

At the Diety level, I think it's a no-brainer. You have to beeline computers, then fiber optics for the internet. But what good is the internet for this gauntlet? It's because of this that my natural tendency is to go for computers first. Last time I chose B and started Apollo because I had no hills and figured I needed to get building early.

Great People:
I use almost all my GPs as super specialists. One artist (hopefully only 1) for a culture bomb. Sometimes the last two make a golden age like crunch said.
I should save an engineer for the space elevator, but if I get him early enough, I'd rather just add him to the city for the +3hammer +6 beaker.

Leader: Qin and Liz are my fav.
I'd love to try this playing as Mansa to see how I like Spiritual, but I want him as an opponent. I suppose I could give up financial and try Gandhi, or Salidin.

Are you saying that you take Education with the Oracle? How late can you build the Oracle and still get it? I was trying to have it done by 750 BC at the latest.

My early wonder path goes Pyramids, Oracle, then maybe Great Lighthouse (+2 trade routes) and Hanging Gardens

@crunch: what a starting position! Except for those mountains, it looks ideal. I'm trying Great Plains next time.

a scientist under rep gets +3 beakers so its actually 9.

No, they don't. A normal scientist specialist with Rep only gives +6 bpt. A super specialist scientist gives +9 bpt. I've provided a screenshot from another OCC game of mine (non-gauntlet) to show you.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/Scientist.JPG

As you can see it is only +6 bpt.

@crunch: what a starting position! Except for those mountains, it looks ideal. I'm trying Great Plains next time.

Pretty sweet, but you're in a corner. That, plus the mountains adds up to a huge lack of forests. Still, I would have liked to play that one myself.

Look at all that aluminum! :eek:

thanks for pointing that out. hmmm, i got an 1874 launch now but my strat is looking weaker.

Are you saying that you take Education with the Oracle? How late can you build the Oracle and still get it? I was trying to have it done by 750 BC at the latest.

My early wonder path goes Pyramids, Oracle, then maybe Great Lighthouse (+2 trade routes) and Hanging Gardens

Yea, I was doing Education with the Oracle back on the Noble level gauntlet. At warlord (and with the Khan's on top of that) you can delay the oracle for a long time. 500 BC pretty easy, who knows if they'd ever build it? Someone should try to get Computers with the Oracle :crazyeye:

Great Lighthouse? I suppose maybe, but it gets obsoleted at some point. What about the Great Lib? Sadly that goes down with Sci Meth, but it's pretty powerful. I don't grab the h. gardens until late when I'm almost at my max size. I always pass on the Parthenon and Stonehenge.

[QUOTE=regoarrarr]Are you saying that you take Education with the Oracle?
It takes some work and some timing, but it can be done if no one else snags the oracle, which is usually anywhere from 1000bc or so to about 400bc IME. Education is a huge bonus if you get it for free. Its usually around twice the beakers than most other techs available at that point in the game

ya wastin i do go for biology and even tho it really hurts i sometimes take med for enviro. using the strat i do health is a REAL problem. but the way you save forests for later well, no way i could control myself that way.

by the way how many workers are people building?

i like the great lib but then i avoid scientific method or at least delay it longer than i probably should. if you beeline for labs maybe GL gets in the way?

ya wastin i do go for biology and even tho it really hurts i sometimes take med for enviro. using the strat i do health is a REAL problem. but the way you save forests for later well, no way i could control myself that way.

by the way how many workers are people building?

I usually build 2 workers, but last game I built just one and got 2 more free! I had no idea you could get free workers from huts. I really enjoyed having the 3 workers, but can't ever seem to take the time to build 3.

Great Lib:
Yes, I stopped beelining for Computers because I also like to delay Sci Meth now that turned my focus to pumping out the great people mid game. But if you're plan is to farm GPs you must have the Great Lib. +8 birth rate !

i think you can workers and settlers up to warlord. i have been building three, but im gonna try 2. 3 and they are always ahead of whats actually needed.

Hmm, you didn't specify random personalities. That would kinda negate the point about having Ghengis around.

I just build one worker and that seems enough the entire game. If there is a lot of forest around, I build another one just for chopping them down, while the other one improves tiles.

1755 AD. launch. Looks like a 1600 finish is possible.
Could you tell me which wonders you build? I usually build Oracle -> Pyramids -> Great Library and if I don't have anything else to build the Hanging Gardens and Taj Mahal (I usually leave it @ 1 turn left untill steel to use the GA to build the iron works faster). Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I want to shave a few extra turns of my end date. ;)

Hmm, you didn't specify random personalities. That would kinda negate the point about having Ghengis around.
I used random personnalities...

1862 used mansa switched to cottages instead of farms. farm strategy is dead to me now. try again tomorrow with liz. phi is probably alot more important than spir.

First try at this was 1923, dispite a war in the late 1800s/early 1900s that cost me all my workers, a couple pop and a few turns to produce defenders. I need to work on my research order.

I had an interesting map with 7-8 flood plains, 4 health (2 outside), 2 Iron (1 random add), Coal(outside), aluminum(outside), copper(outside), spices, incense(outside), ivory(outside). Max pop was 21 with all the :yuck:. I lost track of my GPs but I remember about 15 or 16 counting a few freebies.

outside = outside fat cross of workable tiles.

I just build one worker and that seems enough the entire game.

Could you tell me which wonders you build?

I can't see how 1 worker can keep up. If that's true, then you are not getting a quick enough start. You need to chop wonders fast and improve tiles. Don't forget, you can chop outside your boundries. My 2 workers never get a rest. I prefer 3.

I build Pyra, Great Lib, Oracle, Hanging. (not the Taj, or any others).

Just finished (but not submitted) a 1860 AD launch.
Better than previous but still many things to improve on.
Tried a Great Plains map, I think Pangea has more potential.
Maybe I was just unlucky.
I'll try again see what improvements I can make.

Got 1872, think around 1850 is possible with my strat and better start loc.

I still can't see how 1755 is possible :confused:
Prolly need to revise my tech order ...

btw is it possible to see submitted games?

btw is it possible to see submitted games?I assume you mean prior to bi-monthly publishing. No, but you can always see your own, though.

I assume you mean prior to bi-monthly publishing. No, but you can always see your own, though.

Yes, I meant that. Was hoping to learn from good players :scan:

1858 with Elizabeth on a balanced map, vs Mansa, Cathy, and the Khans. A big improvement for me. I had an excellent start, with six floodplains, lots of woods, corn, gold, and marble in my big plus.

My science rate hovered around 950 beakers throughout the endgame. I think that's my best super science city so far. I'm curious to know what some of the rest of you are peeking out at during the endgame. I included a screenshot of my little baby below.

But I had terrible luck with Great Artists again. I normally avoid the Parthenon because of this, but since I had marble in my radius, it was TOO easy. I paid for that one, getting like five or six artists throughout the game. That cost me probably about 15-20 turns alone. If I could have added all of those as scientist specialists, I would have been running at over 1000 beakers/turn at the end.

These OCCs are fun. I'm looking forward to trying these on higher difficulty levels.

Just finished a 1852 game, which I am fairly pleased with. My peak beakers-per-turn was 1032, and my highest seen hammers-per-turn was 505.

I learned several subtle things this game which makes me believe that this time can be beaten substantially. Perhaps, even, like Wastin' Time did. Funny how that works out.

- Bill

I was just thinking--I wonder if it would be possible to win with an OCC in the new GOTM. Obviously it would have to be "self-imposed," since it's a fixed start. The final score would stink, but it sure would be cool. What do you all think? Possible?

I was just thinking--I wonder if it would be possible to win with an OCC in the new GOTM. Obviously it would have to be "self-imposed," since it's a fixed start. The final score would stink, but it sure would be cool. What do you all think? Possible?

The problem with self-imposed is that you can't build the Oxford University or have more than 2 national wonders, etc.

can always at peace be checked? using the cottages, how do you deal with the pillaging? its one thing to have a farm pillaged but a town? its unbearable!

can always at peace be checked?

No, as stated in the HoF Rules (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php).

Ok, here is my legendary city; however, the launch date is aweful!:D

1816, in a game that can only be described as "highly flawed".

I think I have the strategy down now.

- Bill

What leader are you using Bill?

I have played with a couple, Vicky for the health, Qin for the wonder increase, lizzie for the GP, and Cat for the scout and early culture expansion

I am going with either Qin or Lizzie right now. Not sure which though. I am cottage spamming, then converting to watermills later. With the right start I think I could break 1800, but right now I am around 1850.

Elizibeth. Hands-down the best choice. Qin is the only one who comes close to competing.. but with the right start, the Industrial trait is rendered irrelevant.

Expansive is nice, but in the end its just too weak. Player intelligence overwhelms its bonus. Creative is a non-bonus here; it just doesn't matter. Spiritual will save you around ~6 turns over someone who's playing smart, which doesn't come close to the bonus of Financial or Philosophical.

- Bill

I'm about ready to dump Liz. She will only work if you have stone and/or marble. I had an amazing start with her and still could not beat 1755 (because I had no stone). I got 1790 with her. But, yah, if you hold out for that stone/marble start, she's the best.

:woohoo: I'm getting better. 1900 AD this time.:)

Pretty sweet, but you're in a corner. That, plus the mountains adds up to a huge lack of forests. Still, I would have liked to play that one myself.

Look at all that aluminum! :eek:

I think the western mountains in Great Plains are pretty consistently full of late resources and other goodies as well. And what's the problem with being in a corner?

And what's the problem with being in a corner?

IMO it doesn't allow you to fully expand your borders. One of the problems with OCC games (typically) is the lack of resources. You have a higher chance of getting a resource the more tiles you control. By being in a corner you are lowering your amount of land tiles, therefore less chance of a resource. After looking at your game, I'd say you got really lucky with resources. :D

I am stupid. Just played another game, again on noble. Noticed in Hall of Fame, again. I was completely confident that I changed the difficulty level. No comment.

Elizabeth, 1852, Great Plains, 11 AI.

I gifted Saladin 10+ techs and a worker to build a damn mine on another of those 4 aluminium hills.

Techs: early pottery, writing, alphabet, math, literature, currency, col, civil service, philosophy, etc.

Wonders: Pyramids and Great Library
Small wonders: National Epic, Oxfort University, Ironworks

Civics: Representation, Bureaucracy, Caste, Free Market -> Enviro, Pacifism

Great People: final GPP 1915/2400, I don't know how many people is it.

i have used 3 different leaders on this gauntlet, saladin, liz and mansa. it doesnt matter who i use or if i spam cottages or farms or some combo or both. on the surface it seems like the strategies are radically different. however, my launch times are approx. all the same. 1862-1870 or so. why is this? i noticed on gauntlet 4 also. are there underlying principles that we develop individually as civ players that we ram down whatever leaders throat that we choose? subtle things that might be more important than obvious strategies.

does it really come down to starting location? because that is one thing im not that particular about. i probably figure incorrectly that every starting position within reason is as good as any other. like who knows if you are going to get aluminum?

has anyone else expierenced anything like this?

1892 so far. A few observations (playing Liz or Qin on Great Plains).

The most important strategic resource is Coal, not Aluminium. It works for railroads and Ironworks. Iron is about as important as Aluminium, for the same reason.

The limiting factor throughout the game until very late is science. Cottages are better than the specialists due to Bureaucracy, but since there is only limited amount of them, the specialists are equally important.

If I don't have stone within 3 tiles, I skip the Pyramids. I tend to skip the Oracle as well, since I prefer Scientists over Priests. With the Oracle, I am almost guaranteeed to get 2 or 3 Priests.

I do not build the Globe Theatre until very late, for the same reason.

I prioritize Metal Casting (Forges) and Monotheism (for Organized Religion), since with both of them, the forest chopping becomes a way more effective. I have not decided yet, whether it is better to get them before Great Library, or after. Monotheism seems to be worth having ASAP, there is a good chance to found Judaism, and an additional religion with Monastery (+10% research) and temple +1 happy does not hurt.

I normally chop rush GL -> Aqueduct -> Hanging Gardens -> University -> Oxford -> Observatory (until I run out of forests). After that I switch to Pacifism.

I tend to develop Medicine after Biology, for Environmentalism + Hospital + Red Cross (for 1 GP point + increased chance of Great Scientist).

Liz seems to be the best choice.

To avoid possible attacks, I put some 4 Axes (Maces -> Redcoats -> Infantry -> Mechs) at the borders of my empire close to enemy cities. This way I can keep only 2 or 3 units in the capital. Otherwise, I am constantly attacked (with maces/ keshiks/ cats) even if I have like 10 infantries stationed in the city.

Well, considering this was a) my first gauntlet, b) my first OCC, c) one of my
first played-through single-player (I usually only do multiplayer), I didn't do too bad. I got my spaceship win in 2021 ad. Crappy by your standards maybe, but fine by me ;)

I played Qin Shi Huangdi, Chinese, Financial and Industrious. I'd say he's a good choice for OCC's, since Creative, Spiritual or Organized won't do you much good here. Plus, He starts with Irrigation and Mining.

My strategy was simple. Religion- and Wonder-hogging. Since both Khan's don't start with mystic, and my third selected opponent Elizabeth wouldn't either (I took her because she's financial too, so she's able to keep up with me in tech for quite a while), I knew I'd get at least Hinduism, perhaps even both.

My tech choices were Mystic, Animal Husbandry (to connects the pigs next to my city), then going straight for Hinduism/Buddhism.

As you can see in the first screenshot, the only health resource visible(and
available) was pigs, and this didn't change for a long time. But since the location was full of hills and river(and gold), I played on regardless. But that meant I had to keep the forests around my capital for extra health, costing me a lot of commerce and by this, easily a century of turns at the end. Next time, I will go for more commerce and less production.
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Elizabeth settled early at my borders, in the vain hope of cutting me off copper. She soon had to give more and more land back. But she pissed me off and began to demand things. Since Genghis was getting restless, too, I got him to declare on her. She lost a city, never really recovering.

Meanwhile, I had netted almost all ancient wonders (except for Lighthouse and Colossus for obvious reasons) and got all seven world religions, which not really helped in the research department that much as I'd thought, but got me a better reputation with all my fellow believers. :mischief:

Whenever between two wonders I upgraded my military. None of my rivals ever declared war on me, and whenever they unnerved me, I tossed out a bucket of gold to one of them for declaring war on the rest of them. Worked like a charm, until about the end. I was midway through industrialization when Kublai got Riflemen and almost wiped out England. So Genghis, just entering his golden age, was asked to declare on Kublai. As seen on the power chart, the result was impressive. England continued to lose cities, but only because she was so hellbent to settle on my ever expanding borders.
Then Genghis declared on Liz, and since this was a wonderful example of symmetry, he got his ass kicked by Kublai(cost about 3000 gold). Meanwhile, I laughed and built spaceship parts. :D Kublai got to the first two parts in the end, but that was about it.

Power chart:
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Screenshot 2021 AD:
118254
Map (2021 AD):
118257

Things I'd do again:

-Playing on Balanced, Pangaea
-Choosing Elizabeth as non-aggressive opponent
-Qin is really good for OCC, as said above
-Staying on Pacifism until the end (the 10% science isn't worth wasting two or three Great People)
-leaving out only the great artist wonders. Build everything else.
-sic one Khan on another, lather, rinse, repeat. Don't let them get wiped out, if possible.

Things I'll try to avoid/change next time:

-forgetting about Bureaucracy's obvious advantage for far too long (D'oh!) :blush:
-getting more rivals so I don't have to research alone after astronomy (maybe Mansa Musa or Roosevelt)
-playing a start point which so obviously lacks health resources.
-stop hoping I have aluminium. In my experience, you never ever have aluminium inside your legendary borders.
-Don't waste my time with Statue of Liberty, or Mass Media
-Building the Oracle later for more expensive techs

I will play at least one more of these if time allows. Let's see if I can at least
drop beyond 1900 AD with a better starting location. Wish me luck.

Bah... I had a near-flawless game, but still only managed to launch in 1800.

It appears I must rethink my fundimental strategy.

- Bill

1852 back to farming 4 digit science w/no cottages. I was runnin about 850 without starving

My first run through was a launch in the mid 1900s with Quin. My start position lacked enough health resources. I also did not have coal, iron, or aluminum in my cultural borders.

I tried grabbing a bunch of religions but I do not think that is the best way to go as I never adopted a religion. By staying neutral as far as religion goes, I was able to keep everyone happy and only have my starting warrior for defence. No wasted turns building a military force.

I am switching of to Lizzie as I belive GP are going to be very important. I also need to refine my tech path. I have tried a few new starts but have not got a starting position I liked yet.

EDIT L was misinformed

1858 with Lizzy on great plains, no stone, no alu, had marble, iron and coal though.
Huge progress considering my very first try was 2030 smth. You really learn a lot with these gauntlets :)

Have one question about HOF rules, they say that any map type is allowed, does it mean that I can use custom maps as well? I have modded balanced to allow marble, would love to play on that.

Have one question about HOF rules, they say that any map type is allowed, does it mean that I can use custom maps as well? I have modded balanced to allow marble, would love to play on that.
Any of the game's provided maptypes are allowed. Modding is not permitted.

1826 finish, Qin, Great Plains (east side). No aluminum, but I did have 2 corn, 2 grassland/forest deer, marble - 28 pop total in the city. I also had coal in the cultural radius. Production and research were pretty well balanced; I got Fusion about 10 turns before I finished the last spaceship piece. I'm having a hard time seeing how I can do better without aluminum.

I did not emphasize early religion - Hunting/BW/Pottery/Writing early, then I snagged Judaism, Pyramids, Great Library/Globe Theatre, etc. Most specialists were scientists, but I did have a few great artists, etc. in the midgame.

Too bad. Really love balanced map, especially for OCC, but there is no marble.
All I did in Balanced.py was to change the line

resourcesToEliminate = ('BONUS_MARBLE', 'BONUS_OIL') to
resourcesToEliminate = ('BONUS_OIL')

and now one source of marble appears on the map.

The strange thing is that I've never seen marble in balanced but oil almost always appears although both are eliminated, maybe i should dig deeper into map scripts.

The point of the HOF is to play with the game in it's original state without giving yourself an advantage. Adding marble to a map is just as much changing it at using world builder.

1828 launch but I REALLY should have launched before 1800. Aluminum was just outside my border in a section that Frederick was encroaching on. He wouldn't mine it and trade it. I was stupid, I could have turned the cultural slider up and grabbed it for myself. Instead I made 6 units and took out his city. I used way too many turns on that and it took a while to grab the city.

My starting location wasn't great, I could have done a lot better. I think 1700 is possible, don't think my original guess at 1600 is achievable. I think I have figure my main strat out though. I need to do some math to improve it though.

:mad: No copper or aluminum this time :mad:

I tried the great plains like so many of you are using. Much nicer start (Pig, 2 Corn, 2 Marble and Fur in the cross), but resource problems. Since I had no stone, I threw an Engineer at the Oxford. I used Liz again trying to go for the GPs, but I've got to go back to Qin.
I thought I was going to beat my 1755, but only got 1775. I think that was my last try. Maybe squeeze in one more next week.

Hey, I actually got attacked this game (if you can call it that). My Infantry had to stomp a few Macemen, crossbowmen, and catapults. I had to waste 1 turn building the Infantry, then upgraded my warrior for my army of 2.

1828 on Balanced as Liz against Khans and Cyrus.

1000+ beakers due to GA. Before GA, it was 900+.

I had a few too many cottages there at the end. I actually was able to learn techs faster than I could build parts! :eek: Amazingly I didn't have a single war the entire game. In fact no one did.

Finished with a launch in 1876 AD. Ended up getting nineteen great people (three artist, four engineers, one merchant, one prophet, and ten scientists).

I’ve added an attachment of Berlin at the end of the game.

Edit: I guess I should mention the last 15-20 turns I converted a bunch of towns into watermills for the extra hammers.
:eek: How many times did you have to reroll to get a start like that? 16 or so tiles of river out of 23 must be some kind of record?

:eek: How many times did you have to reroll to get a start like that? 16 or so tiles of river out of 23 must be some kind of record?

I can't remember if I rerolled at all. If I did it would have only been a time or two. I typically only reroll if its a really sucky start. If its okay I'll play it out for a while to see how it goes before ending it.

BTW, I quit my 2nd game and am working on the third. For my second attempt I decided to go for Civil Service as soon as possible hoping a Beauracracy jump early on would be more beneficial. I went for the Pyramids second. I made too many mistakes so nixxed it before I found out if it was a good idea or not.

My game I'm playing now, as Qin, is going much better. I took Education with the Oracle. Need to try and finish it out. Hopefully will have time for a fourth attempt.

Sigh. 1808, with Elizibeth. I think I'm maxing out this strategy. No Coal, but three aluminium (!!).

I'll play one more game with Elizibeth, and if it fails to break 1800 I'll switch to Qin, or maybe Saladin.

- Bill

Switch from Der Fuhrer to Thin Lizzy. That shaves off about 50 years. Still not able to break 1800 but at least I'm under 1850. I have to say I really love OOC. I still don't see how you people break 1800. I'm researching at around 800 beakers/turn throughout the game and still it takes me up untill about 1820-1840 to get all the tech needed for the space ship parts. At this game I was well over 1000 beakers/turn at the end and it still didnt seem enough. Oh well I'll just start another game I guess :rolleyes:

Switch from Der Fuhrer to Thin Lizzy. That shaves off about 50 years. Still not able to break 1800 but at least I'm under 1850. I have to say I really love OOC. I still don't see how you people break 1800.

Impressive!:goodjob: I have tried them all: Lizzy, Vicky, and Qin. I still don't see how you guys can break 1850.;) I have never had any problem with the two Mongols; in fact, they love me to the end. In my last run, they even gave me free coal and iron (so much for the "Balance" map).

I have never had any problem with the two Mongols; in fact, they love me to the end.
The point of including the Mongols in this Gauntlet wasn't to be difficult to the players, but so that players would give them grief. :D

Wastintime I believe you are one of the best OCC players in the world...

Got my self a 1894... must try again

I just completed my second try at a OCC game, and I completed in 1970 which I actually thought was pretty good considering I ran out of time in my previous attempt.
Then I come here and read a few posts trying to measure myself up agains all U's other players.....and all my pride gained through my previously mentioned achivement is gone in an instant...........SPACE RACE VICTORY BEFORE THE 1800's !!!....and in a OCC game!
That's just incredible to me, so I figure I must be doing something terribly wrong.

Playing as Peter (Phi,Exp) trying to emphazize on GP for research, gold and production.
I went for all religions starting with buddhism and hinduism of course and I got them all very fast fast with the help of some GP (my strategy being spreading what religion I want to make good friends of the Khan family), then building Stonehenge and the Oracle, in fact I grabbed all wonders in the game excluding the Hanging Gardens and Notre Dame (strategy to get as many GP points as possible).

I had 26 GP's
Just under 800 beakers p/t (higher when building research)
I built one cottage which never beacame a village since I built a workshop on it to speed production

In my defense I could not build the Space Elevator nor did I get aluminum which was extremely frustrating not that it would have mattered since my research was just keeping up with my Space Part building

I guess I must tunnel my way towards all the spaceship techs as fast as I can and neglect all others?

ONE QUESTION (statements): 1. The more base commerce my city produces, the more science it outputs.

2. If my research is at 100% and my treasury is in the plus there's nothing more I can do except assign more scientists and GP's?

This is my first real post here and i'd love some rock hard tips on how to be as good as some of U's fanatics seem to be


Happy C-IV-ing :)

in fact I grabbed all wonders in the game excluding the Hanging Gardens and Notre Dame (strategy to get as many GP points as possible
Aren't you getting a lot of Artists that way? I generally only want 1 Artist throughout the game and that's the free one you get with music. This to cross the 5000 culture at which time you'll have all the land you'll ever get (you should have finished the space race before hitting legendary ;) ).

I think most people here (me included) try not to 'pollute' their GPP 'pool' with anything other than scientist, hoping to force more Great Scientists this way as there is less chance for any other type of leader. An early Engineer is great (worth spending it on the partheon in my opinion, since it will produce an additional 2 or 3 GP before it gets obsolete), an early Priest is a little less useful although the hammer boost can help in the beginning. An early Artist is horrible. You don't need the gold since you have no upkeep, nor the extra culture, since you'll 50.000 before it's useful. That's why I try to delay building the Globe Theatre as long as possible, and if I have a couple of luxeries, or the Khan's are willing to trade some, I don't build it at all

Then again I am yet to break 1800 so maybe I'm doing it all wrong :)

1730AD with Elizabeth.

This time can be substantially beaten. I didn't have any Aluminium, and as such my production lagged behind my research by a significant amount. I even managed to get some Future Tech... very unoptimized.

- Bill

Welcome to the boards Eric. Don't be intimidated at all the early finishes. This guantlet will have a lot of entries. The people that are posting on here are going to be near the top, the average finish time will not be anywhere near some of these scores. I know I felt pretty bad when I first started playing the gauntlet and finished 100 turns behind the other players. This is how I learned though.

Here are the basic tips for any friendly victory type, cultural, space, diplo. They are used for this gauntlet as well. These are really hard concepts to get into your head, but you need to in order to compete in these gauntlets. They aren't the normal way of play, they are meant for a fast finish:

1) Play a minimalistic strategy. Only build and research things you need.
2) Religions are usually useless. Founding religions is really useless.
3) Commerce if your tech and/or cultural rate. You want towns, ALL towns. You have 20 spaces in your fat cross you can work, you want atleast 10 of them towns, more if available.
4) Farms are not necessary (having 1-2 is good IF you need them, don't just build them because)
5) Most wonders are a waste of time.
6) Trade away your tech. If you can't trade something for it, give it away. You aren't going to fight your opponent, it doesn't matter if they are ahead of you in tech.
7) Play a leader that helps you the most. In most peaceful games, the financial trait is required.

That is about all I can think of right now. I may update it if I think of more. Now as for this gauntlet. Here is what I am doing right now. This isn't what everyone is doing, and I am bottoming out at 1800 on this strat, so it won't be the one that wins.

I play as Elizabeth. The financial trait is almost a requirement for this gauntlet. Philosophical helps in producing extra GP to use as super specialists. Qin Shi Huang is another good choice to help with wonder building. The same strat works for him as well.

Map selection, I use balanced. It has the highest chance of getting the resources you want, great plains and pangea are good choices as well. As for # of opponents, I have played with anywhere from 2-9 on this gauntlet. Fewer means less pressure on your borders but more means better tech trading and on balanced, more resources.

As for a starting location, you need as many river tiles as you can get. Each river tile gives +1 commerce, having 10 river tiles means about 25-30 extra commerce a turn, that will save you atleast 10 turns in the end. You need to have several food resources in your big border, within 4 spaces of your capital. The more variety the better. Having htem in your fat cross is an added bonus.

If you have multiple luxury resources in your fat cross, silks, spices, ivory, etc, put cottages on them. I may or may not keep 1 to put a plantation on to get the happiness. They will generate more as a town than they would as a plantation, and it doesn't do any good to have 4 silks.

Here is what I build in my city. If it isn't on the list, I don't build it. Granary, library, university, laboratory, grocer, aquaduct, Oxford, Globe, Pyramids, Oracle, and sometimes Great Library if I can get it built early. If I am building faster than I am teching, and it is EARLY I will build a monastery or two. Don't try and fit them in if you are teching fast in the beginning. I don't build the Hanging Gardens, its not worth the time. If I had stone I may fit it in though.

Here is my tech path right now. It can change each time I play, but it is basic. By tech path, I mean I go to the tech tree and click on this, let the game fill in the pre-requisites. I don't tech anything I don't need to, I trade for everything I can.

Bronze-Pottery-Alphabet-Civil Service-Paper-Education(Oracle)-Printing Press-Literature(if I can't trade for it and want the GL)-Astronomy-Assembly Line-Electricity-Liberalism-Industrialization(from liberalism)-Rocketry-Computers-Ecology then the other space ship techs, order varies.

I need to go now, ask any specific questions you want me to explain. I will post more later.

Ben

Congratulations Bill. Think you are going to win this one again. What did you do differently this time? You seem to be better than I am at finding the little optimizations.

Newb question: How come in some of the screenshots I am seeing nobody is suffering from unhappyness? I city size 24 cities with only 15 happyness and nobody complaining. How was this pulled off?

Newb question: How come in some of the screenshots I am seeing nobody is suffering from unhappyness? I city size 24 cities with only 15 happyness and nobody complaining. How was this pulled off?

In One City Challenges, the Globe Theatre national wonder, available after the tech drama and after building a theatre, is extremely important. It eliminates unhappiness from the city where it is built. In OCCs, that means it eliminates ALL unhappiness from your entire empire.

Analogous cases can be made for the other "in the city where it is built" wonders, ex. Oxford University gives +100% beakers in one city. There is only one city, so Oxford increases research by 2/3rds for the entire empire.

OTOH, wonders wich give +1 something in all cities are comparatively unimportant.

HTH, Regards.

PS Best finish 1992 - still proud of myself :P

In One City Challenges, the Globe Theatre national wonder, available after the tech drama and after building a theatre, is extremely important. It eliminates unhappiness from the city where it is built. In OCCs, that means it eliminates ALL unhappiness from your entire empire.

Analogous cases can be made for the other "in the city where it is built" wonders, ex. Oxford University gives +100% beakers in one city. There is only one city, so Oxford increases research by 2/3rds for the entire empire.

OTOH, wonders wich give +1 something in all cities are comparatively unimportant.

HTH, Regards.

PS Best finish 1992 - still proud of myself :P

My best finish is 1946 at the moment but I never knew that thing about the globe! Thats really useful (can trade away all those extra resources now^^) I'll try to see what I can get for beelining to drama+education+literature (globe,oxford,library) BTW is it me or does the AI never seem to try to go for any useful wonder? Also I check random personality option each time at the game to hope prevent some war (afaik the khans are the best warmongers, but with this i never have to build units except a warrior to give some early happiness)

1824 Balanced Elizabeth

Used Oracle to get Philosophy on the same turn as researching Civil Service to save one turn of anarchy. (I feared waiting with Oracle for Education + I could not start building uni/oxford immediately anyway - wanted pyramids and GL as well)

Used Taj Mahal to build most of Apollo Program (started as late as 1430 AD).

Other wonders: Pyramids, Great Library.

Used final artist + fusion engineer for final GA. I research robotics after fusion to use more of the GA. Also, built 2 explorers while waiting for robotics/docking bay as a prebuild.

Final GP points: 1716/2400. Oracle gave me 2 prophets, Taj Mahal fortunately only one artist (GA). Had one late engineer, too (became a citizen as well).

Had some wars... thus 3 military units. I even think I had to switch to slavery prematurely to pop rush a spearman. Built only one cottage (only one floodplain) (it was pillaged once during early war), I had two grassland gems instead.

Happy moment: culture-razed Montezuma's city with Stonehenge.

My dilemmas:
- at which point to switch from all-scientists to all-production
- whether to let the city grow late game after techs like ecology / genetics, or stay focused on building/teching (or perhaps taking medicine for environmentalism and grow sooner???)

Perhaps I'll attach a screenshot later.

Aren't you getting a lot of Artists that way? I generally only want 1 Artist throughout the game and that's the free one you get with music. This to cross the 5000 culture at which time you'll have all the land you'll ever get (you should have finished the space race before hitting legendary ;) ).

I had about 7 or 8 artists and I had culture enough to reach a cultural victory before I won a space race (if I had had 3 cities that is) or a wopping 156.000+ culture points.
I guess you have a good point there ;)


Welcome to the boards Eric. Don't be intimidated at all the early finishes. This guantlet will have a lot of entries. The people that are posting on here are going to be near the top, the average finish time will not be anywhere near some of these scores. I know I felt pretty bad when I first started playing the gauntlet and finished 100 turns behind the other players. This is how I learned though.........................
Thank you :)
The strategy you mention will require some persistance on my behalf, I generally like to build everything I can and get every Culture Point, Great Person and Gold Coin possible.
Yes, I'm a bit greedy that way :crazyeye:

Big thanks for the time you have taken to help, will try this and post again on my successes and mishaps

Here is what I build in my city. If it isn't on the list, I don't build it. Granary, library, university, laboratory, grocer, aquaduct, Oxford, Globe, Pyramids, Oracle, and sometimes Great Library if I can get it built early. If I am building faster than I am teching, and it is EARLY I will build a monastery or two. Don't try and fit them in if you are teching fast in the beginning. I don't build the Hanging Gardens, its not worth the time. If I had stone I may fit it in though.


Hi Ben,

on that list, I miss forge, factory, ironworks, nukeplant or equivalent, lift if you have aluminum.

How in the world do you get the required hammers for building the spaceship? :confused:

Regards.

Ben,

The main thing I did differently in the 1730 game was I tried out Great Plains rather than Balanced, and I was ultra-picky about my starting location.

Yes, sad as it is, this really is a Regenerator gauntlet.

- Bill

You are right, I completely forgot and left those out :P I was thinking about some of my other games without the need for production. Yes, I build forge, factory, nuke plant, ironworks, and the computer lab for this gauntlet as well. I try and hold off until right before I need it to build all of those though to avoid the unhealthiness factor.

I figured it would be all about starting location again. I think I found a little bit of a twist for a new strategy on this one. I only finished 1868 with it last attempt but I actually had every single resource except marble (it was 1 space out of my border) on the last game. It actually makes the game a little more difficult though. I will give it another run with a better starting location and see if it works out any better, then I will post it up tonight.

Bill: On your starting location, do you try for several food tiles or production tiles? I am guessing food is the way to go. I have been favoring starts with stone as well, marble would probably be even more ideal. And as many river tiles as possible are good as well.

First, foremost, and above all else I look to have Stone within the fat cross of my city. I will regenerate any start without it.

Second, I look for two high-food resources within the fat cross. Examples of this are corn and pigs, though irrigated wheat is also acceptable.

Third, I look for a few natural three-food tiles, like flood plains or grassland deer. These are ideal cottage points.

Fourth, I look at the overall terrain. I throw out starts with mountains or ocean. Lakes are *sometimes* acceptable, but still not optimum. I look at the overall greenness of the map, and whether there are too many hills, or not enough.

I imagine I look at somewhere around 50 starts before getting one that meets my criteria. Basically, I know exactly what's going to be improved and in what order after London is founded.

- Bill

1806 AD, Great Plains, Elizabeth, lot of AI.

A nice game. 5 wheat, 3 wine, stone (and coal) in fat cross. Most tiles are plains, 2 grasslands, 1 floodplain, 1 lake, 2 plain hills. Founded on plain hills wine (2/2/3). Managed to trade for several health resources.

Dumped all but 1 cottage in favor of irrigated wheat + scientists, more GP than before, 1256/3000.

This time I had to build Globe Theatre (but I built it as late as possible).

When seeing the start I did not think it would end that good, but I decided to give it a try. I remember to regenerate starts like that in the past. Well, my best game so far.

Apollo started 1350 AD.

50 restarts, that is way more than I ever do. I think 20 is about my record. I usually end up settling on something less than perfect. Guess I just need more patience.

1816 AD, Great Plains, Qin - 3 AIs.
I restarted until I got stone in the fat cross, and could have finished earlier (by quite a bit) if I had aluminum. It was a tile too far tho. There is very little stone in the GPs, and it tends to be in the central west. You can get outrageous resources in the NE quadrant - I had one start with 56 food in the fat cross, no farms except resources. But I seem to plateau out around 1820 on the east side, and you're sunk if you have no coal and iron - which seems to be about 50/50.

No other map seems competitve - you can get 8 starting resources in the fat cross on the great plains. One start - 4 cows, 2 horses, marble, 2 wheat, gold...1826 launch.

This really is a true regenerator gauntlet. I fully agree Plains is the only viable map type; no other map has similar clusters of resources.

I don't think I have the patience to try to get that perfect start, so I'll make some observations and theorycraft.

Wonders: Pyramids is a must for Representation. Using the Oracle to grab Education for a faster Oxford is worth it. Ironworks is a must with coal/iron. The Globe Theater tends to generate too many GA and should be put off as long as possible, but should be built if you have enough food surplus and need the happy. The Epic is worth chance of GAs in most cases. The only other wonders really worth considering are Stonehenge, the Hanging Gardens, and the Great Library. With stone, Stonehenge and the Hanging Gardens are much more attractive. The GL is questionable. Without marble, it takes a while to build. It also obsoletes quickly, forcing you to delay Sci Meth to make the most of it. The Parthenon tends to make more GAs than the boost is worth and is hard to build without marble.

Tech path: Well, since this is an OCC end date comes down to what you build, what you tech, and what the computer gives you in terms of map and AI activity. Techwise, we want to trade for as much as possible and get techs that let us build spaceship parts, wonders, or enhance research or hammer output. So the first couple of important techs are going to be pottery, alphabet, and bronze working. Next comes Civil Service for Bureaucracy and Education for Oxfords.

After Education things become much less clear. Useful techs at this point are Philosophy (Pacifism), Printing Press (+1 commerce per town), Literature (Epic, GL), Astronomy (+25% beaker observatory), currency (assuming the AI haven’t traded it to you yet, +1 trade route), and music (free +3 base beakers over [at +225% that’s 9 beakers per turn for a 600 beaker tech, so music is worth it]).

After backfilling some or all of the preceding techs, you move back up the tech tree either going for Assembly Line (with the intention of getting Industrialism next and picking up Economics (merchant) and Corporation (+1 trade route) along the way) OR going directly on to Rocketry. Bypassing Assembly Line early means you miss out on the productive boosts from the factory and Al for a while, but gives the AI a chance to research some stuff for you. Since production is generally the limiting factor, not research, Rocketry => Computers generally makes more sense than the other way round.

You'll notice I haven't mentioned Liberalism yet. Liberalism is very important, of course, but the timing is interesting. Wait too long and either the AI will beat you too it or the AI will be too backward to ever learn anything for you to trade from them. On Warlord you can get Future Tech with liberalism, but delaying too long is NOT worth it. Personally I think grabbing either Computers or Industrialism is the best option; both are 6435 beaker techs and give you time to gift the AI up to speed so they can try to learn something that you want them to learn.

After that its all spaceship techs, plus railroad if you have coal and are really hammer poor. The only spaceship techs that help you tech along are Fusion, Biology, Genetics, and Robotics. You'll have to judge for yourself if the food, GE, or Space Elevator (I kinda don't think the elevator is ever going to be worth it, but it might, I guess) will help you more, while making sure you keep learning spaceship techs fast enough to be working on a part at all times.

Ok, I am going to have to switch over to great plains now. Just played an amazing game on balanced and still finished in 1824. In my fat cross I had, stone, marble, banana, 3 copper (put cottages on 2 on plains), 2 iron (put cottages on 1 plains), ivory (cottage), and 2 horses (cottages on both). I didn't like the low amount of food resources or not having any flood plains but I loved the fact that I had marble. Food was definitely what held me back. I don't think my cottages were able to develop fast enough in the beginning so that set me back. The only real mistake I made was missing liberalism by a couple turns. I had put off sci method a long time for the GL advantage, was a bad mistake. Wanted industrialism with liberalism so I had to wait. It only cost me 6 turns or so to research but that prabably set me back 8-9 turns overall. I was also short on river squares, think I only had 5? Going to pass on the marble next time.

I have never been a great plains fan but will try it next time for the abundance of food. I just want to break 1800. I am still thinking 1700 may be the goal. Lets see if Bill can do it ;)

I finally got one I am pretty happy with: 1836. :D

I missed Oracle for education slingshot. I didn't have copper, iron or coal until last border expansion. (Coal actually came much later when I pushed back a city border.) I had to trade for Aluminum.

My fat cross had stone, corn, and 8 flood plains to start. Map was Balanced with just the two Khans.

1800 AD Great Plains Elizabeth; lot of regeneration...
5 wheat, 3 cow, 3 horse, wine, gems, copper in fat cross. Only 4 river tiles though. No iron, had to trade for aluminium.
Final GPP 1007/3300.
A decent 1102 research at size 25 with 15 citizens working as scientists.

Hmm, and to think I was pretty proud of my 1932 launch before I checked this thread ... I was cranking out 315 hammers / turn at the end ...

1775 Finish, Great Plains, Elizabeth. 3 AIs, to prevent one AI from steamrollering the other one and forcing me into war.
I had 2 corn, 2 forest/GL/deer, 3 hills, all the rest river/grasslands.

I think I have a viable strategy that doesn't require stone. If you look for an eastern-side startup, you can get a lot of food resources and river/grasslands. I basically went for Globe Theatre early, using massive food to fill up to a high population base quickly and fill up cottages plus science specialists. Later the grassland/river cottages can be swapped out for watermills. If you have enough scientists, the extra artists from globe/epic aren't that numerous. Lots of workers to chop the pyramids are key, and quick with a huge food surplus. I used 3, and probably could have shaved several turns off the finish with 4. The other area that was helpful was beelining for the relevant civics and trying for multiple ones at the same time (e.g. coupling bureacracy with org religion and caste system). I also aim to get medicine quickly, since the massive gain in health from environmentalism and hospital has a quick payoff in research.

This is the first time I'm able to get a decent score compared to you guys. After numerous tries I got an 1750AD launch with Salladin on Great plains, with room for a few turns improvement. Great plains is definiately the way to go, and so is Philosophical, both Spiritual and Financial seem to work nice.

1775 as Bismark on Great Plains.
Here is Berlin at its best.

I see you guys have been busy over the weekend. Nice scores. Bumped my earlier attempt down to maybe 3rd. So I had to play again...

1705 AD

I'm trying to find time for these--maybe one more. 1600 will happen. I was a little out of practice and this game was a mess. I forgot to change to Representation for around 700 years. I did not get Copper OR Aluminum and had to trade for Iron, so my ship was hard to build. Waited too long before remembering to build a power plant.

Liz was having no trouble building even without stone. I ran out of a few things to build and built research sometimes.

Great Plains (jumped on the bandwagon and used this map like most of you, but I don't think I'll ever get alum.)

Great Plains (jumped on the bandwagon and used this map like most of you, but I don't think I'll ever get alum.)Does aluminum even show up on Great Plains. The one I tried, could even find it on the map. :confused:

Aluminum only shows up in the western half of the map, which is also where the stone shows up. The food resources and the marble are in the east, where I suspect most of the starts are taking place.

I've grown disillusioned with both the Great Plains and with stone. My games are back to Balanced. The Great Plains maps are flashy, but they have hidden disadvantages.

- Bill

I am still on balanced because the great plains seems to be smaller I am not sure though??

Hi guys first gauntlet I have had a go at and first OCC.

Have only started playing gauntlet a few days. In my first attempt 2050 came round and I didnt even look like finishing. Read thorugh thread next attempt was 2027, then 1979. Was going better in last attempt but one of the Khans came and got me. Have been playing as Lizzy with Khans and Mansa. Have put Cyrus in as well in last couple and he actually wiped Kublai out towards the end in one game. This is a challenging way to play and really makes you sort the prioritys.

Aluminum only shows up in the western half of the map, which is also where the stone shows up. The food resources and the marble are in the east, where I suspect most of the starts are taking place.

I've grown disillusioned with both the Great Plains and with stone. My games are back to Balanced. The Great Plains maps are flashy, but they have hidden disadvantages.

- Bill

Aluminium spawns consistently in the middle of west side. Also, it spawns in clusters of 4-5. Therefore, all you need is to gift Industrialisation to the civ residing there. And have some spare resources to trade. Or maybe I'm just lucky but it happened every time I played this far.

Just played a really nice game with LOT of map regeneration, to get 4 corn and 2 pig in city radius. Elizabeth, 1710 AD. But I don't see much room for further improvement. I had or traded for all resources (including bribing Kublai Khan to attack Washington to cancel their copper deal).

Development: agriculture, pottery, writing, alpha, one turn of buddhism (then trade), one turn of priesthood (then trade), CoL (adopt religion, send missionary to probable Aluminium civ), CS (switch to Caste system, Bureaucracy), Paper, Edu (Oracle), Metal Casting (after completing forge start chopping GL, Uni, Oxford, Nat.Epic), Literature, Philosophy (switch to Pacifism), Music (Artist joins), Nationhood, Constitution (switch to Representation, around 200 BC).
Later beelines
- Astronomy (observatory)
- Corporation (grocer, merchant, NOT adopting free market...)
- Steam Power (+Liberalism for Assembly Line: factory, coal plant, Ironworks)
- Combustion (to research as much as possible without obsoleting GL/monasteries)
- Medicine (adopt Environmentalism, build Hospital, Red Cross)
- Rocketry
- Industrialism (few turns before start gifting techs to probable Aluminium nation)
- Genetics (supermarket, laboratory); at this point approx finish Globe Theatre prebuild, as necessary
- Ecology (recycling plant) (don't bother with hydro plant, you'd waste shields)
- Fusion (perhaps keep a late great person for GA)
- Robotics

Launched mine 1902AD.

Balanced map as Elizabeth.

Development: agriculture, pottery, writing, alpha, one turn of buddhism (then trade), one turn of priesthood (then trade), CoL (adopt religion, send missionary to probable Aluminium civ), CS (switch to Caste system, Bureaucracy), Paper, Edu (Oracle), Metal Casting (after completing forge start chopping GL, Uni, Oxford, Nat.Epic), Literature, Philosophy (switch to Pacifism), Music (Artist joins), Nationhood, Constitution (switch to Representation, around 200 BC).

You skipped the pyramids? I never did that, but I'm going to try that now. Also skipped theocracy when you got to CS. I usually switch to that before I go to pacifism, because you want to build GL, Uni, Oxford, Nat.Epic all around that time. Everything else I basically follow the same tech road, but I can't seem to break 1800 :rolleyes:

You skipped the pyramids? I never did that, but I'm going to try that now. Also skipped theocracy when you got to CS. I usually switch to that before I go to pacifism, because you want to build GL, Uni, Oxford, Nat.Epic all around that time. Everything else I basically follow the same tech road, but I can't seem to break 1800 :rolleyes:

Yep, skipped pyramids. Basically, by skipping pyramids you can afford to spend hammers on other stuff earlier. And I did not have many hammers because I ran lot of scientists and only had so many forests and wanted to keep all forest in fat cross for later use... Constitution is not that far away (2 techs from philosophy).

I would have used theocracy but I could not trade for it until later, and by that time pacifism was nearby.

Great Plains, 2 Khans + Mansa (I just give him any tech I get except philosophy (liberalism))

Well I just played a game and I skipped Pyramids. I had 2 scientists all the game through and the rest working cottages or bonus food tiles. I think this is the way to go (get 3-4 bonus food tiles and just cottage the rest) since I never really needed any shield tiles. I made an error by switching to theology too late at the end and not changing my towns to watermills earlier, else I would have gotten a better time since I had to wait about 15 turns before all the components were build since I already had all the tech :crazyeye: . But this is my first game I ever went under 1800 so I'm feeling proud today :D . It's not as good as most of the good players here, but since it's my first HOF I'm rather satisfied with the result :)

Alright, I'm officially clueless.

I've spent the last few days clawing at the 1730 barrier, and I have absolutely no idea how you guys get through it. At all. In any way, shape, or form.

All I'm doing now is replaying one amazing start (3 corn + stone) over and over in hopes of learning something. Getting nowhere, though.

- Bill

Haven't got time to play Civ4 anymore so would appriciate anyone trying out the following strat for me. Please let me know what you think of it.
Played it once quickly and finished teching in 1680, only production held me back till 1785. With decent start I think it's possible to finish around 1660.

So in short -
Lizzy in NE of great plains, khans, Mansa (maybe some more like like Cyrus, Asoka or Hatty), you want lots of food, river and forest and marble.
Found your city on a plains hill, preferrably with wine or similar.

Teching: pottery, bronze, myst, writing, alpha - backfill missing, code, literature, paper

Build: worker, worker, worker?, Stonehenge, library, granary, Great Library, Oracle

Use your first great prophet from Stonehenge for Civil Service (DO NOT RESEARCH MASONRY before that or he'll give you monoth, you must have medit, poly AND priest as well), chop for GL, time Oracle for education. You should get edu by 1200BC the latest.

After that as usual ,calendar asap to eliminate prophets from stonehenge and to get some happyness.

1660 AD.

I think I'm done. Did it with NO copper, NO Aluminum. (Overrated resources.)

Liz, Great Plains, marble, fur, deer, 2 corn
Khan's + Mansa.
City size 23.

For the early fur tile, I researched Hunting -> bronze -> masonry -> Alphabet.
I believe my success comes from a very fast early game. I'm all about getting the Oxford up ASAP. I built it in 875BC this game, when are you all finishing it?

I only had to convert a couple towns to watermills in the last few turns to shave off a turn or two. Other than that, my tech and production finished at almost the exact same time. I always time it so I finish building about 2-3 turns after my final tech. Are you guys doing that?

1660 AD.

For the early fur tile, I researched Hunting -> bronze -> masonry -> Alphabet.


Wow! 1660!

No pottery, are you farming and using specialists instead of cottages? Or started cottages later after alphabet?

edit: Stupid me, you need pottery for writing
Fur by river, 5 commerce, nice idea, never thought of going for hunting first

I'm done too. There is no way I can break 1660 AD.

Wow! 1660!

Fur by river, 5 commerce, nice idea, never thought of going for hunting first

Yea, I've done hunting first several times. Worked for the Deer too. I actually left the forest on the Fur. It's not destroyed by the camp.

If I get another chance to play, I'm gonna try some of your strat, syn. I like how it focuses on the early game. I'm not sure I like my first GP being a prophet. I often use an engineer for Oxford and I really like to get an early Scientist for the Academy. I don't like playing GP roulette. A 2nd prophet would be bad.

I also would like to try crunch's strat of not building Pyramids. These two seem to fit together. Sadly this means no engineer.

Yeah, wow, can't believe you made it by 1660, that is just craziness. I just had my personal best, 1806. Could have finished around 1790 if I would have been able to trade for aluminum. Finished with a pop of 27, was 23 until I switched to environmentalism.

I don't know about putting a camp on that fur though. I cottage all of my +1 gold resources in my fat cross. Same with deer if I have another outside my cross. I will have to try going after the fur early. I think getting Oxford early is the key, I am going to have to work on shaving off a little time getting there. I have also been a little unlucky about getting a scientist early for the academy. Last game I hit an engineer, prophet, engineer, then scientist.

Wastin: Do you use the Oracle for education or not build it at all in order to not get a prophet? Do you build the GL and hold off on sci method or just not build it? Do you wait until all of your cottages are worked before you starting making scientists or do you make a couple early to speed up GP production?

Managed 1705AD.

My head hurts.

- Bill

I got to 1750, but 1660 seems pretty tough. Great Plains, NE, Elizabeth; Khans and Washington. I do swap off engineers and scientists so that the last piece finishes just as robotics does. I could try to go for an Oracle Education slingshot. The fastest starts seem to have deer and fur, so that you can get a long way with hunting. Hunting - Bronze -Pottery - Masonry - Writing - Alphabet seems to be my most successful opening sequence, and cities with lots of food resources. A fast play for Globe can easily get you a 15 size city in the early BCs...

Big_Ben,

I like to have one early commerce tile to work before cottages come up. So, without gems or gold, the camp has to do. You can always change it to a cottage later. I didn't, but I should have since I had 4 Fur.

I remember being all excited to get Edu with the Oracle on Gauntlet 4. Eventually everyone else figured that out and the thrill wore off. I posted a long explanation of why I